FVSU’s Joseph Adkins
Players Student Drama Group presents “Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine: A Drama Suite
for Social Justice”
The Fort Valley State University Joseph Adkins Players (JAP)
proudly presents “Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine: A Drama Suite for Social Justice”
as our Spring 2014 production. This
production is our artists’ response to the circumstances surrounding the recent
shooting deaths of young African Americans including Trayvon Martin, Reneisha
McBride, Jonathan Ferrell and Jordan Davis.
“Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine” is made up of two one act lynching plays
that include “Saving White Face” which was adapted by Dr. Maisha S. Akbar (JAP
faculty advisor) from Bebe Moore Campbell’s best -selling novel, Your Blues
Ain’t Like Mine (1992). In fact, Campbell’s estate granted Dr. Akbar
special permission to produce this show.
The second play, “Safe” (1929), was written by Harlem Renaissance writer
Georgia Douglas Johnson. Johnson depicts
incidents around the1899 lynching of Sam Hose. Hose, whose murder was one of
the most infamous lynchings in American history, was a native of Marshallville,
Georgia, which is only 10 miles away from The Fort Valley State University
campus.
Through this performance, JAP foregrounds the anti-lynching
activism that was spearheaded by Ida B. Wells Barnett; as well as that of the
NAACP, the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching (ASWPL) and many other visual and literary
artists who sought to interrogate cultural fictions that were (re)produced to
justify the extralegal murders of countless African Americans.
Under the direction of Dr. Maisha S. Akbar, Fort Valley
State University’s Joseph Adkins Players (JAP) student drama group performs on
a “play-ground” of performance, scholarship and activism. In addition to delivering cutting edge
productions, JAP members use theater to engage in scholarly research and
consider issues of social justice. JAP
operates as an official student group that represents FVSU at national theater
and communications conferences such as those of the National Communication
Association (NCA), the Black Theatre Network (BTN). JAP’s organizational motto is, “Saving the
Drama for the Stage.”
JAP thanks you for your continued support of our shows. Follow
us on twitter @JAP_FVSU. Enjoy the show!
Best regards,
Maisha S. Akbar, Ph.D., JAP Faculty Advisor
Akbarm@fvsu.edu
www.Blackplaybook.com; @ablackplaybook
